studio 1771
artful indulgence

Crow likes shiny things ~ caw

Where I Live
Shawnigan Lake

Where I Work
Shawnigan Lake School

In 1988 we were in a Bolivian mountain village, sitting on our backpacks under the shade of an awning of  the only store, waiting for the next truck to come through and take us to the next town. We had no idea when it would arrive and so passed the time playing cribbage, sipping on warm colas, and nodding and smiling at the occasional passerby. As the afternoon wore on, more people began to mill around, including small groups of children. We guessed that school was out for the day. We watched the kids play tag, shoot marbles and roll bicycle tire rims down the dusty road with a stick, all the time giving us curious sidelong glances.

Eventually a couple of preteens approached us, a brave thing to do since it’s likely that gringos were a rare species here. They asked us why were there, where we were going, where we were from. As we talked, more and more kids joined in, until about two dozen jostled around us. Having become used to these kinds of questions after two months on the road, my husband pulled out our map and we tried to explain where Canada was. As usual we gave up and said we came from north of the United States. “Ahhh” they all nodded. Los Estados Unidos.

One teenaged boy leaned forward and challenged us. “Conoces mica yacso?” They all waited with bated breath. Do we know what? Who? My husband and I looked at each other, shook our heads and asked him to repeat it. He did so, “Mica yacso, mica yacso!” The rest of the kids took up the chant louder and louder until one of them broke free from the group and started moonwalking on the road.

Oh! Michael Jackson?  Furious nods, smiles. Uh, no.

They looked crestfallen and the boy who asked us in the first place looked self satisfied, as though he’d proved we weren’t anything special. Suddenly  I jumped up, opened my pack, brought out my Walkman and rifled through our small collection of tapes. Aha! A copy of Thriller.

For the next few minutes the Walkman and its headphones were passsed from child to child until a young girl ran into the group with a battered, battery-powered ghetto blaster. We listened to that tape twice through, the kids dancing in the road, some parents joining the group to listen and some of the seniors pacing back and forth looking most displeased at the whole scene.

Then our truck arrived.

We hefted our packs aboard and the teenager who had started this in the first place came up to me and handed me the tape. “Gracias senora” he said wistfully, his eyes never leaving the cassette. I smiled. And gave the tape back to him. “For you. For all of you,” I said.

The voice of “mica yacso” echoed over the still, starlit valley as we trundled to our next stop in the back of, what turned out to be, a coca delivery truck. But that’s another story.

 

 

For more information about anything on this site please email lakelady@shaw.ca